How Good Is Your Social Media Program? Find Out with The 60 Second Marketer Social Media Snapshot.

Are you interested in getting a quick read on how good your social media program is? A lot of people are.

With that in mind, I’ve put a little grid together to help you get a sense of how good your social media program is. It’s called the 60 Second Marketer Social Media Snapshot and it’s designed to give you a sense of where you are and where you should be going.

The Snapshot isn’t all-inclusive and it isn’t designed to do anything other than give you something to shoot darts at. But it’s a nifty little way to get an understanding of where you are on the social media spectrum.

How the Snapshot Works

Most social media programs suffer from two things. The first is that they’re run tactically. By that, I mean that businesses are putting up a Facebook page or creating a Twitter account without thinking through their strategic goals first.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where do you fall on a tactical/strategic scale? If you score yourself a 1, that means that you’re highly-tactical and that you’re jumping into social media before you’ve thought through your strategy and goals. (If you’re on the tactical side of the equation, you might be interested in also reading “Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Launch a Social Media Campaign” on the 60 Second Marketer blog.)

If you score yourself a 10, you’re on the highly-strategic side of the equation. That means that you have a written social media plan complete with objectives, strategies, tactics and an executional timeline. (Side note: People like you drive me crazy. Relax, would ya? You’re making the rest of us look like slackers.)

Okay, now we’re ready to look at the part-time/full-time line on the spectrum. If you score yourself a 1, you’re doing it when it suits your fancy — for example, when you’re having your morning cup of coffee.

If you score yourself a 10, that means you have a person (or a team of people) who are focusing 100% of their time on your social media campaign. (If that’s the case, lucky you.)

Now that you’ve graded yourself, plot out where you are today on the Social Media Snapshot below. Draw a dot where your two grades intersect. In Example A, the company graded themselves a 4 on the part-time/full-time spectrum and a 7 on the tactical/strategic spectrum. In Example B, the company graded themselves a an 8 and a 4.

Now — and this is important — plot out where you want to be in 6 months as well as 12 months.

Be realistic. And don’t just plot out something random for your 6 month and 12 month goal. Think through how you’re going to accomplish those goals so that you can put it all together.

Make sense?

Again, the 60 Second Marketer Social Media Snapshot isn’t intended to be the end-all and be-all. It’s just intended to give you something to shoot for today, in 6 months and in 12 months. By visualizing where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow, you’ll have a graphic reminder of how 2011 should roll out for you over the next 12 months.

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